Retired Montreal prof says striking teachers need to stick to their guns

Quebec teachers are voting overwhelmingly in favour of rotating strike mandates as negotiations with the provincial government continue to stall.

Phil Ritchie, a retired teacher from the Lakeshore School Board — now Lester B. Pearson School Board — went through four different strikes during his 35-year career.

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Striking is one of the few tools that teachers have to negotiate with the government, Ritchie told CBC Daybreak.

"They have no other tool to go and get better working conditions and better salaries except for the collective bargaining process," said Ritchie.

Ritchie said Quebec teachers never recovered from salary cuts and an increase in workload under the Parti Québécois government in the 1980s.

Quebec teachers continue to be the worst paid teachers in Canada, said Ritchie.

"Who is going to want to be a teacher if you see that your salary could never get to where it could be?" asked Ritchie.

Teachers have to hold their heads high during the upcoming rotating strikes, he said.

"I don't regret being a teacher, I loved it but it would have been nice to be recognized more for what I did," said Ritchie.